Cricket and the Indian Woman–Part One

on February 14, 2009

Kartikey Sehgal

Women’s interest in cricket is a sudden development, propelled mostly by the advertisements projecting cricketers as demigods. In the year 2003, model and actress Mandira Bedi became popular for hosting a cricket-discussion program during the World Cup cricket matches.

Her immense popularity had little to do with her knowledge about cricket and more with the plunging neckline of her saris and the unavoidable amount of cleavage on exhibit.

mandira bedi

Passionate about cricket? Mandira Bedi has succeeded in adding sexual interest to the sport. And only that.

Today, women are seen cheering for their favourite players on television and attending cricket-celebration parties at pubs and restaurants where they join the men in post-cricket drunken revelry. And these women don’t watch women’s cricket.

They do not know about the captain of the Indian women cricket team and they don’t cheer for them at pubs and discos. Advertisers spend lesser money on women’s cricket because most women don’t bother to attend the matches and there has never been a strong demand for women cricket.

Fact: Most women don’t know the sport. And their cheering and fan-following has more sexual tones than any proof of their love for the sport. This is perfectly healthy. However, it is a problem if these women start commenting on cricket and assume the role of critics. They are fooling their self and adding to their misery. They may feel left out during cricketing discussions because their knowledge is immature.

Women are watching cricket because men watch it a lot. And watching cricket brings attention to women. It is enough for most women to know the names of the players and which player is ‘hot property’. Cricketers parade on ramp shows and women accompany them or foreign models dance around them. These women don’t know the meaning of a reverse-sweep. They don’t know if the batsman’s strength lies in his front-foot strokes or his back foot-drives. They don’t even know the meanings of drives and hooks. They will parade around the cricketer because he makes lots of money and is seen on television. And standing next to a cricketer would give the models lots of attention. These advertisements tell the women sitting at home that cricketers are successful people because they play cricket; never mind their stature in the sport, their technique or their skills. 

Advertisers are selling cricket and women are being naïve in accepting the advertisement.

jhulan goswami

Not celebrated by Indian women: Jhulan Goswami is recognised as the fastest bowler in women's cricket. She was recently appointed as the captain of the Indian team.

Now say the advertisers decide that women ought to be educated about the sport to sustain their interest. They hire models (Ruby Bhatia, Mandira Bedi) to talk about cricket on television. These models are not expected to know much about the sport. They have been hired so that they can make the men talk about the sport. Also note that actual women-cricketers are not asked to do this job, ostensibly because they do not project sexiness.

Once again, there would be women who wouldn’t watch the cricket chat programs to learn about the sport but would wait for something ‘exciting’ to happen in the sport. This is healthy; the women know what they want from the sport and they are not feigning any extra interest in the sport. But there would be women who would hear opinions about the sport from the models and the experts who talk on television.

Television offers mostly opinions and not much wisdom about the sport. The experts contradict themselves and the viewer does not know about the back-foot punch that is discussed on the shows. As such, to know the sport, actual practice and demonstration along with a regular and a keen interest in the sport seem imperative. I have met women who don’t have much idea about the sport except from what they hear and read from media.

A woman told me that she loved M.S. Dhoni because he looks good and also because he played well. However, she was unable to tell me what she liked about Dhoni’s batting. She did not know what the term ‘average’ meant in cricket. She wrongly associated it with the average age of the players. [Average: Number of runs scored per match]

Another girl said that Sachin Tendulkar has never really won matches for India. She heard it on some television news channel. She didn’t know how matches are to be won. “You play well and you win matches for India.” I asked her if Sachin’s position as a middle order batsman would help him finish matches and raise his personal scoring average. She was clueless. The women mentioned are educated and have opinions on several women-related issues. Neither of them had seen Ricky Ponting bat but knew that he is good player based on newspapers and television channels.

A telling sign of their understanding of the sport is their judgement of Rahul Dravid. The middle-order batsman is considered a role-model for players who wish to perfect their batting technique. Many men, fed on the modern wham-bam cricket, don’t like him because he doesn’t play ‘fast’, i.e. score his runs quickly. Women don’t like him because they have heard that men are losing interest in him. However, I did come across some women who like Rahul. He is a “sincere character” and “a gem of a person”. He is “quiet and non-aggressive” and a “thorough gentleman”. These women were not able to explain what they liked about his batting. They saw in him a man they may like to know; or a man who could be short-listed as “a husband material”.

Apart from troubling the cricketing sensibilities of men (and women), such women also reveal their unsurety; probably their need to hide their enchantment with sportsmen and to appear wise about the sport.

Despite the technological and informative era, women are misled by advertisements and useless shows on cricket that have permeated television and are, in fact  surrogates of advertising.

Indian Hockey Team

Less advertising money means less women fans for the Indian Hockey Team

It would be fair to say that such human behaviour applies to many other sporting and non-sporting fields. But note that the Indian hockey team has fitter and stronger players than the Indian cricket team and very few women see these men as pin-ups. Advertising (including surrogate) impedes the pure exposition of sexuality, and this exposition is healthy and essential for human beings. Women’s preferences are being dictated by advertisement in every sphere, including cricket.

My references to women are not restricted to any collective based on class or aptitude. Most women and men watching and adoring cricket is an extension of their sexual nature. It is not a judgement or a statement on the gender. Sexual nature is manifested in most of our decisions. It includes the decision to read this story on this website. 

Part One ends

 

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